Calais goes to Brussels

On the 8th December L’Auberge des Migrants invites you to gather with us in Brussels outside the European Commission. L’Auberge des Migrants is a humanitarian aid organisation based in Northern France that has been providing aid for ten years. We are standing in solidarity with refugees – human beings – throughout Europe, whose human rights are being violated. This event will take place in the run up to International Human Rights Day on the 10th. This year we aim to shed light on the conditions that refugees and asylum seekers are forced to live in and the rejection, isolation and brutality they face in their efforts to reach safety in Europe.

As volunteers in Calais and Dunkirk, we share a feeling of disappointment in European governments: disappointment in their unwillingness to be responsible and accountable for displaced communities suffering on their doorsteps.

Refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, unaccompanied minors, families, people with mental health problems, human beings! are being pushed from periphery, to city edge, to wooded area, to the streets, and very rarely, if ever, to legal advice or safe asylum systems. We do not accept that thousands of people are sleeping outside this winter, treated inhumanely.

As we meet more and more people affected by the neglect of European governments, the frustration we feel as aid providers grows from anger into a need for action. We have decided to take the situation of Calais and Dunkirk to Brussels to remind Europe of the blatant disregard of Human Rights here. We are going to protest in Brussels, in front of the European Commission—for this is a European problem, not one exclusive to Northern France.

We demand greater transparency and involvement in regulations currently being negotiated (Dublin IV). We demand that European governments work in conjunction with civil society organisations (including migrant self-organisations) so that procedures allow people to effectively seek asylum and, as a result, feel accepted and valued rather than villainised. We demand that governments live up to their own human rights commitments and protect displaced people seeking refuge in Europe.

This protest will be informative, peaceful and dignified—like the asylum process should be.

We ask you to mobilise and stand in solidarity with us on December 8th.

If you are unable to travel to Brussels, spread our message and share our link as your stand.